


Candle

by mofumanju



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-11-23 13:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11403267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mofumanju/pseuds/mofumanju
Summary: “Hydrangeas are blooming, Eichi.”





	Candle

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know it was a while I didn't post something there, forgive me because this is crap but whatevs.

The soft smile curling Eichi’s mouth is painted with melancholy, the taste of summer heat lingering on his lips like the memory of a stolen kiss under the June rain. He tilts his head, his back against the wall of the temple he spent most of his good days in, when darkness gave him a break and stopped spreading on his body with the sole purpose to break it. That place, of all the places he has seen - not too many, if he must be honest, but he doesn’t care, not now anyway - is the only one he would love to stay forever. 

Breathing the scent of incense permeating those walls makes him feel well.  
  
It makes him feel alive.  
  
The silence inside the room is broken by the slow sliding of the shoji - rain invades the air with his smell, mingling with the holiness of that place and making his stomach fill with butterflies; it’s a faint feeling, the ghost of something he still remembers way too well, but it intensifies when his eyes meet a slender figure, cutting the dim light in two and projecting his shadow over the Buddha statue on the other side of the room.

“You took long to come, today, I was starting to feel alone” he says, his whole body following the new presence, turning like a sunflower towards a Sun that’s never too warm, never too bright. The softness of his smile leaves place to something different, bittersweet, a candy that stayed too much on the tongue and left an horrible taste. Keito doesn’t answer as he closes the door - he never does, ignoring him because he is too focused on the sound of his steps, on the echo of his own breath invading the room, invading his lungs. When the sounds stops, making the room fall back in a state of silence, it almost hurt. But Eichi knows what comes next, so he doesn’t mind the pain.   
  
Keito bows in front of the statue, closing his eyes for a moment - that composure, his lips wearing thin, tell Eichi so much about the tiredness wearing him off, but he knows that whatever he says, he won’t be listened. So he just shakes his head, walking on the tips of his feet to get closer. There is a sort of elegance, in the way Keito bends his knees and sits in _seiza_ , elegance in the way his _koromo_ follows his movements, wrapping his legs as he touches the floor. Rain is pouring over their heads, creating melodies that mingle with the striking of a match, and the igniting of a flame. One, two, three candles burn oxygen and project shadows over shadows, and oh, that’s the scent Eichi likes, wax and smoke drawing abstract art in the air. He takes place beside Keito, eyes open over his childhood friend’s figure and a smile that he will never lose, not even when he’s going to disappear forever. Keito’s lips move, but he doesn’t speak a word that he can understand, voice low and deep that chants prayers he never allowed himself to learn. He never believed in anything, after all, but still there is something magic in the way Keito’s lips tense and relax, pronouncing words belonging somewhere too far from there.   
  
Eichi waits patiently, playing with the hem of his shirt - it’s warm, inside the temple, summer humidity sticking to his body like a second layer or skin. He knows he just have to be quiet and give him the time he needs; after all Eichi has the time of the world to wait.

A thunder, somewhere above their heads, enlights the sky for the moment of a breath, killing the warm colours of the candles and making room to a cold, sterile white. Luckily, it doesn’t last.

“Hydrangeas are blooming, Eichi,” it’s the first thing that leaves Keito’s mouth, when he stops praying after a time Eichi lost count of. He tilts his head towards Keito, lips curving softly as he leaves the hem of his shirt to rest his hands on his thighs. “Have you seen them? They are pretty, aren’t they? Walking to school is a little less gloomy, now that summer is coming.”

Eichi chuckles on the back of his hand, shaking his head a bit.   
  
“Of course I’ve seen them. I walk to school with you every day, you silly.”   
  
Keito never looks at him, when they are inside the temple - he never opens his eyes, keeping his head bowed in who knows what kind of respectful gesture; Eichi would love to see his eyes, once in a while, even if the room is dark and eats all the colours around them, making them dull, making them sad. The flame of the candles around them flicker, moved by an invisible strength, and Eichi feels for a moment like playing with them, hovering his hand over that warmth.    
  
One of the flames goes out, and the chuckle that leaves Keito’s mouth is music for his ears, something he hasn’t heard in a while now.    
  
“Stop being a child,” he whispers, and Eichi isn’t sure, but there’s something wrong in his voice - and the illusion of happiness just becomes dust in the air, spread by the trail of smoke left by a candle that doesn’t burn anymore. “You shouldn’t play while I’m trying to pray, you know?”   
  
“You are not praying, Keito, you’re talking to me. Unless you consider me a deity, which would flatter me way too much.”   
Keito shakes his head, and Eichi catches it, the glimpse of light in his eyes when he opens them to look at his little mischief. He doesn’t light it again, looking at the smoke drawing abstract art between them.    
  
“... I thought about buying flowers,” and oh, why is it, that Keito’s voice is always cracked when he is talking to him? “but those hydrangeas were beautiful, maybe if I ask their owner, she will let me cut some for you.”   
  
“Don’t you dare, Hasumi Keito. I don’t want flowers, I’m just happy with talking to you. Seriously, what should I do with you…”   
  
Eichi falls on his side, leans on Keito’s shoulder like when they were still children, and Keito showed him his sketchbook with pride, telling him stories they wouldn’t have ever lived. But Keito doesn’t reach, doesn’t reach for his head, doesn’t play with his hair like he used to do when things were still good enough not to fill his heart with worry.    
He wished he could suck that away.  

“Ohi, Eichi.”   
  
There’s tension building inside his throat, but Eichi ignores it, knowing it’s just a reflex, a reproduction of the anxiety stroking Keito in that moment and flowing into him. He sighs, bending his head and looking at the flames dancing in front of them - wishing for them to consume and bring with their smoke the sorrow hovering around them is too much, isn’t it?

“Mh?”

Keito stops for a moment - and Eichi feels he is holding his breath, as if he is pondering the words to say, before he gives up and shakes his head. When he raises his eyes Keito is smiling, but the shadows projected by the candles make him look tired, make him look sadder than Eichi would want to see. 

“I wonder if you can hear me.”

It’s melting, Keito’s mask, melting with the warmth of the candle and of his own face burning hot, as he tries to fight something that Eichi feels way too well, now that he is on the other side, now that he doesn’t need to talk to someone to see what’s inside their heart. It’s unconscious, the movement of his arms wrapping around shoulders that soon will start to shake, trembling like leaves moved by the strength of a wind they can’t fight. He would hold his breath, if he was still alive, just not to break the silence in which the room has fallen, a silence he is not able to break if not for only himself. And oh, he would sell his soul to the devil, now, if that meant coming back to life and be able to hold Keito between his arms.

“Of course I can,” and it’s merely a whisper, something Keito wouldn’t be able to hear even if he was still alive - and there is a smile on his lips, full of the same sadness filling his beloved childhood friend’s heart, and it makes him happy.

He makes him feel closer.

“I’m here, Keito.”


End file.
